The New York Times looks into the same thing I was wondering about back in December - why more teams are spending timeouts on the floor, with specialty stools and a flock of managers moving them to and fro. No one in the article actually justifies the absurd practice, which seems to mostly originate in the Big 12 and Big East conferences, but Joe Hillock, Ben Howland's director of basketball operations at UCLA makes an effort:
Coaches huddle near the top of the key. Someone goes to the scorer’s table to see if the opponent is substituting anyone and to double-check where the ball will be inbounded. The five in the game sit in front of the coach, and the bench players gather around them, where coaches can see them.
“Otherwise, how do I know that they’re not looking at the best-looking girl in the stands?” Hillock said.
I don't know, perhaps sometime in the copious amounts of practice you could teach the players to have attention spans longer than a gnat? It's a timeout, not an opera, for crying out loud.